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A Novel
by Erika Mailman
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“Everyone sits at that rock,” said Jost. “The children sit there to play, the women sit on that rock to card their wool. And an old one such as Künne, to be walking the road, she’d have to tarry a bit to rest her feet.”
“But the hen?”
“The hen is as hungry as the rest of us and hasn’t the will to push out eggs,” said Jost.
I stared down at the rind of carrot spinning slowly in my bowl. Künne was my friend. I remembered when her hair had been flaxen, her braids thick as a goose neck. Now they were thin and gray, straggled like mine. I had taken only one sip from the bowl but could eat no more. If Künne was being talked of in this way, she was in danger. A Dominican friar had come to our village a week ago—he had been the one to speak of God punishing one of our villagers by withholding the harvest from everyone. I nodded to Jost and began to push my bowl across the board to him. He smiled weakly, knowing what Künne was to me. My shaky fingers, barely recognizable to me now as those that once easily did my bidding, pushed too hard and the bowl spilled.
“Fool!” said Irmeltrud as she stood and tried to scoop the liquid back into the bowl. “You’ve wasted an entire bowl. Would that you worked for it yourself, you’d treat it a little more carefully!”
It was true. I’d done naught to prepare for this repast. My fingers were too shaky for the knife to cut the carrots and my frame too frail to carry water to the cauldron.
The soup dripped down onto the dirt below. Jost’s face registered the regret that he had given me of his, and now it was lost to both.
“I don’t know how we’re to keep all these mouths full, Jost,” said Irmeltrud, turning her ire to him. “It’s barely enough to even wet the teeth. There’s too many in this house.”
“Calm yourself. All’s here that needs to be, and we will fill our stomachs when winter passes, God willing,” he said.
“I can barely think, I’m so hungry!” she yelled, and both children jumped at the loud bark of her tone. “And here she sits all the day, doing nothing but dreaming! All her age have already gone! My parents died many years ago! Yet she keeps sitting at our table, opening her mouth for whatever food we have!”
Jost got up from the table. “She is my mother, wife. Pray that Matern treats you kindly when you are gray. Have pity; she’s worked her entire life and now she deserves her rest.” He put on his cloak and hat and brushed past her to go out the door. A shattering wind came in and swirled around us before the door shut.
For a moment I thought Jost’s words had shamed her. She stared down at the table. Then she got up to get a kitchen cloth, which she pressed to the wet board to soak up the soup, then put in Matern’s mouth to suck. “You need to earn your keep, old woman,” she said in a tired voice. She reached across and cradled Alke’s cheek in her hand. Alke concentrated only on the thin sheen of soup on her spoon.
“Look at my hands,” I whispered. “Scarcely more useful than those buried in the graveyard, and with little more flesh on them. How can I put them to use?”
“By holding them out flat for alms. Beg for your meal, old woman. I’m through with feeding you.”
I stared.
“That’s right, Güde. Get your garments on and beg from the village. Get these children some food!”
Alke now licked the bowl that had been spilled, her pink tongue darting down to the bottom to catch the halfway salty flavor. Matern stared at his mother solemnly, still suckling the cloth she had placed in his mouth.
I stood to go to my straw mattress in the corner and shun her wrath, but she put her hands on my shoulders and funneled me to the door. “Here then! Here’s your scarf, there, and there,” she said as she wrapped it around my head and neck. She thrust my cloak at me.
Excerpted from The Witch's Trinity by Erika Mailman Copyright © 2007 by Erika Mailman. Excerpted by permission of Crown, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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